Google's Tarnished Chrome
The search and advertising company once seemed to do no wrong. Now members of Congress aren't so sure. — Reps. Edward Markey, D-Mass., and Joe Barton, R-Texas, cochairmen of the Bipartisan Privacy Caucus and longtime members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, don't agree on much.
Context & Ripple Effects
Google's congressional troubles are not new: in December 2007 a House Republican already targeted the company on privacy grounds, and that October lawmakers had publicly warned it against selling out to censors in foreign markets. What is different in March 2011 is who is doing the doubting — Reps. Edward Markey and Joe Barton agree on little, yet the Bipartisan Privacy Caucus cochairmen are united in questioning whether the company still deserves its once-clean reputation, with Chrome as the flashpoint.
The timing sharpens the stakes. Google has just wound down shipments of its Cr-48 test laptops and says commercial Chrome OS devices arrive this summer, while an SEC filing shows four senior vice presidents collecting bonuses above $5 million apiece in 2011. The browser is no longer a side project but a product line heading into paying customers' hands, right as two senior Energy and Commerce voices turn skeptical.
First-order effects
- Markey and Barton's scrutiny puts Chrome's data practices directly in front of the House Energy and Commerce Committee just as Google readies commercial Chrome OS hardware for launch this summer.
- The bipartisan framing matters: privacy complaints against Google are no longer confined to one party or one member, raising the odds of formal inquiries rather than single-lawmaker letters.
Second-order effects
- Enterprise and education buyers evaluating Chrome OS this summer must weigh congressional skepticism alongside the product pitch, giving rivals like Microsoft and Mozilla a trust argument they did not have when Google 'did no wrong.'
- Advertisers watching the browser become a bigger share of Google's business face the prospect that privacy rules written for search get extended to Chrome, changing what data the ad engine can collect at the access layer.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, congressional oversight will keep migrating up Google's stack — from search results in 2007 to the browser and OS layer in 2011 — as the company controls more of the surface where users meet the web.
- A durable bipartisan Privacy Caucus focused on one dominant company points toward standing legislative scrutiny of consumer-data practices rather than episodic hearings, regardless of which party holds the House.
The trend: Congressional privacy oversight is following Google from its search monopoly into the browser-and-OS access surfaces it is now shipping to customers.